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Jade Calcaire
Description: Jade stands at an impressive 5' 9'' (180cm), as tall as the average French man, and obviously much taller then the average Japanese. She has long, flowing black hair, reaching down to her thighs. She has bright orange eyes that pierce through the night, betraying ill intentions behind her seductive smile. Long, pointed ears and horns that curve up the sides of her head give her the appearance of a demon along with the bat-like wings that bore openly from her back. Her skin is a stone grey; soft to the touch yet firm. She looks near the age of 30. Still young but definitely a woman. She is quite well-endowed, sporting a very definite hourglass figure. Jade wears a skintight leotard, mostly to show off her skin, and also because it allows her a lot of mobility. She also appreciates classical french-styled dresses for formal attire, though she lacks much opportunity to wear it. Background: Throughout history, gargoyles, an architectural feature, have come to represent many things in their mocking, frightening visages. For the Catholic Church, some are represented as protectors of holy places, to ward off spirits. Other depictions are a bit more blunt about it, and portray them as evil, as to keep less literate from sinning, lest they do not awaken and hunt them down in the night. The Cathedral of Notre Dame is a quite famous building, known for its many, many gargoyles. Completed in 1345, the gargoyles of Notre Dame have come to frighten many visitors, the evil they supposedly represent striking fear into the hearts of men. In 1548, rioting Huguenots would occupy the church, desecrating many of its holy symbols. One of these priests would go up a staircase to find a few of the famous gargoyles. Decrying them as evil, he attempted to use a large hammer to smash the gargoyles, and cause them to topple over the side to their doom on the ground below. However, as he approached the first gargoyle he intended to bestow this fate, it came as quite a surprise when it turned its head towards him and suddenly attacked! The gargoyle grabbed the priest, turning him into stone as he screamed, and threw him over the side instead, watching him hit the ground and smash into hundreds of pieces, before it flew off into the sky. Having just awoken, the gargoyle rose from its perch, and took to the skies. It flew all about Paris that night, coming to see the sights it had only previously been able to watch from far off at the chapel. Paris was a truly wonderful city, full of life and art, and she quite enjoyed the different views she could now get. However, as day broke, she decided to settle down on the corner of some new building, turning to stone once again and assuming a frightening visage with which to stare down the citizens, watching them, learning their ways, and most importantly, confusing and scaring the people who noticed her mysterious appearance. Thus, a cycle would begin of her awakened life in Paris. Each night she would 'awaken', shifting back from stone to explore Paris, flying through the night sky like a demon of the darkness. Often she would go to frighten people on the streets or through windows, scaring humans, who thought she may very well be a fiend sent from Hell. Each sunrise she would find a new location to land and assume her statue form, so she could always watch Paris from a new vantage point, many times getting strange and frightened looks from those who could swear the gargoyle had not been there the day before. Sometimes she find and seduce drunkards as a prank, fooling them into believing she was a beautiful woman, and then, as they began to sober up, revealing her true nature, and turning them into stone while the look of terror remained on her face. She would often times put these statues in the middle of the street for a day before turning them back the next night, further causing fear among the French while she herself enjoyed the practical joke. It was from this she earned the monkier "Méduse de Paris", for her reputation as a temptress who turned people to stone. She continued haunting Paris like this for nearly 100 years. By the mid 1600s, she was quite well known among the French of Paris, although her methods were never quite figured out by many, but she was notorious nonetheless. However, on one autumn night of the year 1642, during a night of scaring the richer people among Paris, she decided to attempt to bewitch a rich-looking older man, quite apparently tipsy from a fun night of drinking. However, it was she who ended up tricked, for the man turned out to be a powerful vampire who was living in Paris. Subdued well before she realized exactly what kind of power she was up against, she had no chance to escape from the vampire, and she was forced under him as a servant of the vampire, under the threat that she would be destroyed for trying to make a fool of him. Under the thumb of the vampire, she was instead forced do to much of the vampire's dirty work. She would often go out to bring him prey, turning unsuspecting humans into stone and carrying them back to the vampire's lair, a hidden chamber within the catacombs of Paris, lying under a large building the vampire owned. Sometimes he would ask her to go out to frighten and threaten specific people he desired. For some time, she was quite unhappy to be the vampire's servant. However, over the years she eventually came to accept the position, and even began to like her work. Influencing these changes, as she worked for the vampire more, she was also given more freedom to roam and do things of her own accord until she was needed. She was eventually even given a proper name by the vampire, "Dame Calcaire", which she became quite fond of. She never did get more then friendly with the vampire, however, although she eventually did become one of his most trusted servants. In 1789, the French Revolution would begin, and in 1793 the lair of the vampire was stormed. Calcaire, although loyal to the vampire, still put her life over his. When the life of her master was in danger, she hid away and turned to stone, leaving him for dead. After the battle had settled down, she found she was finally free once again! With freedom in mind, Calcaire finally decided to leave Paris, and France altogether. Although she much enjoyed the city sights, the Revolution made the city, and the whole country much too dangerous. She instead decided to begin traveling the world, finding new towns to settle in for a short while, eventually moving on. Through many years, Calcaire slowly moved east through Europe, then Asia, where she would find towns to scare people in, see sights and sounds, and even pick up bits and pieces of the languages spoken in each new country she visited. Over the next 50 years she moved through France, to the German Empire, going into Russia for a short time before working her way southeast through Turkestan and India, and then more east into China. She spent quite a lot of time in China, where the people were very superstitious, and easily found to fear her without much work. She greatly enjoyed the architecture of the larger cities of China, which were quite different from the sights of the west. She spent quite a few years in China before she learned about Japan, which she heard was even more beautiful and was a paradise for the supernatural. Around the 1850s she flew into Japan, and was not disappointed. The architecture of Japan's buildings were stunning. She would often perch atop the roofs of the larger buildings during the day for her usual routines, marveling at Japan's varied traditions in building design. During the night, she'd go out and scare people as usual, but she found it quite interesting how varied and common the local youkai populations were. Though she couldn't speak Japanese herself at first, after 10 years she managed to pick it up well, and she had been making friends with the local youkai, often helping them out with their tricks and scares in humans, and even giving herself a new name. However, also after the 10 years she noticed that the youkai were also starting to vanish, either gone or having moved. She herself quickly learned that many of the youkai were moving out to a paradise for people like her, and intrigued by the idea, she decided to go there herself, leaving the large towns behind, and moving to Gensokyo. Personality: Very youkaish. Jade is often polite to others, or sometimes seductive, trying to appear nice despite being obviously a youkai. However, to humans, this is often a veneer behind which is a more malevolent nature. She enjoys giving humans a good scare, and will usually try to trick them or seduce them to do it. To other youkai, she's a bit more friendly, especially if said youkai are friendly back. She's quite fine with teaming up with others, even youkai she doesn't know well, to give humans a good scare. Jade isn't much for fighting others. She can defend herself if she has to, but she doesn't typically start fights with other youkai, or humans she knows aren't powerless. That doesn't mean she's an advocate of peace, of course, as she'll gladly tease or harass others as she sees fit, but she usually stops at a point where things start turning aggressive, just riling people up for kicks. Jade's manner of speaking is a little foreign, as Japanese is obviously not her native language. Sometimes she'll let french words slip into her sentences, getting odd looks, but she'll either ignore it and correct herself if she has to. Jade is a bit of an architecture nut and loves exploring and admiring fancy buildings, such as shrines, castles, mansions, etc. She prefers to sleep or watch from buildings with better designs, although she can sit down just about anywhere if she really has to. She's lived in Gensoukyou for a long time, but it doesn't have quite as much of that kind of thing as the Outside World does. Sometimes she longs to go back to the outside world so she can see the changes architects have made in the last 100 years, and to visit her favorite buildings if they still exist. Powers: Enhanced Strength As a gargoyle coming from stone, Jade naturally has retained some power from magic that flows through the Earth itself, which she can manifest as physical strength. This makes her unnaturally strong, even compared to average youkai. This is nowhere near the strength of, say, an Oni, of course, but it's still notable to mention. Petrification Jade has the ability to turn things to and from stone. Things she turns into stone will take all the qualities of stone. This comes with all the benefits and downsides of having things become rocks, such as increased weight and density, and decreased elasticity. This power extends to become a type of rock of any kind of stone she desires, from granite to marble. Her favorite is limestone, hence her name. She can manipulate anything that wasn't already stone to begin with, although what it turns into is not truly stone itself. Living things turned into stone can be turned back still living, provided they didn't die of starvation or something. She has to touch them to turn them into stone. For things like humans, she has a tendency to turn only their skin into stone, excluding their eyes, so that they can properly see what is going on around them as stone, but be unable to move or do anything about it. She does this to generate more fear, although she could just as easily turn the whole of them into a statue without harm to them or difficulty for her. Not surprisingly, if you break something living that has been turned into stone by her, you'll effectively be killing it. Living Petrification wears off eventually, dependent on how much was turned into stone. A small portion being petrified might last an hour. Having your skin turned into stone and being made an example of tends to last about a day. Famously, she uses this power on herself as a disguise, to watch things without being bothered, or just to sleep. She can turn specific parts of her body into stone as she can with other things but this comes with the benefits of being useful in things like combat, where she can deliver a crushing punch with a stone fist, or stop an attack stone cold by turning the part about to be hit into rock. Nonliving things can be affected by her in a slightly longer range, about 6 feet, and she only has to be able to see it to manipulate it. In combat, if she was forced to fight dirty, she could do something mean like turning a combatant's clothing into stone to weigh them down, if she gets close enough. As far as danmaku combat, she can use some natural amount of earth magic to fight, although she doesn't prefer this and would likely have an easier time in hand-to-hand combat. Trivia: * Though Jade is friendly to most youkai, she is especially fond of vampires, and to a lesser extent other western-based supernatural creatures. * Jade can speak fluent French, and prefers to speak it when able. Japanese is her main second language, but she is not wholly fluent. * Jade has a decent understanding of Chinese, and has a basic grasp of many other languages, notably English. * Jade is illiterate in all languages except French. Category:Characters Category:Females